Maggots
by hawkeye-pierce08
Summary: A schizophrenic teen wanders into the clinic claiming that maggots eat at his brain. House takes on his case, and finds the boy might not be as crazy as everyone believes. The boy also gives Cuddy a radical idea that will change her life. Need 20 reviews!
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1-Schizo

* * *

Dr. Gregory House chucked his over-sized gray and red tennis ball against the wall for the _umpteenth_ time within the last hour. As much as he tried to remain busy, his game console decided to give him the "red circle of doom" or whatever kids call it. Either way, he ran out of ideas ages ago.

The snow outside threw ice-daggers at him, deterred only by his window. It started earlier this morning, and even though he expected the waiting room and the emergency room to fill quickly, both remained relatively calm. No unusual cases presented themselves, and for once in a very long time, House grew bored with the entire hospital.

As he began to toss the ball at the ceiling, the only person he would truly call anything more than an acquaintance walked into his office. Wilson wore a blue tie on this particular day, the same color he wore every Tuesday, and he too had no patients. Because of the snow, all his appointments canceled.

He said something then, but House ignored him. The more Wilson spoke, the faster House threw the ball, clearly indicating that he would like some alone time. Instead of Wilson taking the hint though, he grabbed the ball before it fell back into House's hand.

"I said Cuddy wants you in the clinic. Are you even listening to me?" Wilson goaded.

"If I say 'no' will you give me a cookie for being a good boy and not lying?"

Wilson threw the ball back at him with some force and grabbed House's cane. "Just go downstairs and see what she wants. It might give you something to do besides moping around your office all day."

House consented, snatching the cane out of Wilson's hand with indignation. As the door closed behind him, House peered through the glass of his door again and stuck his tongue out.

* * *

On the first floor, House pretended to be a patient instead of a doctor, in hopes no one would ask him to do something. The room held very few waiting patients, but it was impossible to sit far enough away from one. Instead he chose a pair far off into the corner to sit next to, an older teenage girl and her younger brother from their appearance. As he sat down, the boy's blue eyes drifted towards him.

"The government made it snow," he stated, as if House knew already. The boy's sister wacked at his knee and House continued to ignore him, until the boy spoke again. "Since I own New Jersey, I speak Finnish."

House turned to the boy, suppressing laughter. Then he had a clear look at him; his extremely blue eyes, soft brown hair, and his unusually gangly frame. The sister looked hardly different; instead she had thick brown locks draped over her shoulders. She smacked at his knee once more and gave him a look House would fear if he were a child again. "I'm sorry," she said. "He knows not to talk to strangers."

"But he might know James Stewart!" the boy squealed, causing the entire waiting room to turn towards him. House did not want this attention, and as the boy continued to shriek, a somewhat loud groan escaped the doctor. He then turned to the young man.

"Look, the more you ramble on like that, the more you give away my position. Now I'm trying to keep a low profile from all those other doctors so if you could shut up I will consider not tossing you out the front door," House propositioned. The boy quickly ceased, then smiled as if he understood perfectly well, and then bent his head low, requesting House do the same.

"My name's Jeremy. I'm hiding from the Secret Service, too."

Jeremy winked a beady eye at him, and then copied House's leg position. He crossed his right leg over his left, placed his hands atop his knee, and contorted his face into a bored expression. House took the time to speak with his sister.

"Obviously you did not bring him here because he's crazy. Did the government finally plant a homing beacon in him?" House sat forward to peer across Jeremy, but the boy leaned forward as well. He leaned back, but Jeremy did the same. Before he could imitate once more, House placed his hand on Jeremy's neck and locked him into place.

"He woke up this morning and said he saw everything in twos," she explained, as if nothing out of the ordinary occurred that morning.

"How could you tell that?"

"His wallpaper has boats on it. He said he was fulfilling the prophecy of Noah." The girl nodded towards House's hand, under which Jeremy began to struggle. Just as he began to scream once again that a Martian put a clamp on his neck, House forced Jeremy to look at him. With his penlight, he peered into the boy's eyes, carefully scrutinizing their movement. Just as his finger drifted towards the outside, Jeremy screeched in pain.

"The maggots! Maya, the maggots are eating my brain!" Fat tears dripped from his eyes, and as he started to rock, the girl wrapped a thin arm around him. "Sorry," she apologized again. "He's schizophrenic; he doesn't know any better."

Jeremy scratched at the side of his head as if he had an unreachable itch. House snatched one of his hands and peered into his eyes again, this time seeing just what he needed. His left eye looked somewhat cloudy compared to the right.

"You know you sound really stupid when you whine like that," House began, but instead of receiving some cry of disgust like other patients he insulted, Jeremy chuckled. The tears slowly subsided, but the young man continued to laugh. House dropped the boy's hand, yet the laughter continued.

Jeremy fell forward out of the chair, laughing so hard his shoulders shook. He grabbed his stomach then, and rolled over onto his side, his face red. As Maya dropped to her knees, desperately avoiding the stares of the other patients, Jeremy turned onto his back, just in time for House to call a crash cart. The boy's eyes lolled back into their sockets, and his body began to jerk.

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2-Consult

* * *

House underlined the title on his dry-erase board, leaning heavily on his cane for support. Although much of his annoyed team objected to his nickname for the boy (House subsequently wrote 'Loony Toon' to piss everyone off), no one had anything better. All but one trekked through the knee-high snow that morning to deliberate.

"Schizophrenic kid, age seventeen, comes in with blurred vision, a cloudy eye, unnecessary laughter, and decides to have a seizure when I don't want him to. Any ideas?" House turned and faced his team. They stared back at him with daggers in their eyes.

"Angelman's Syndrome. Explains the laughter-" Foreman began.

House tapped his cane on the floor. "But not anything else. And just because he's crazy doesn't make him slow. Racist."

"Could be a complication of the schizophrenia?" Cameron asked from her usual seat at the front of the table. She knew House would destroy her proposition but she asked to at least get the ball rolling. No one else volunteered first at any rate.

"Right, because the serotonin in his brain decided to drip down into his eyeball. Maybe if your boyfriend decides to show he can come up with something better. Next," House barked, already amused. He already had a few ideas, but instead of just giving away the answers he wanted his team to work somewhat. They made it through the snow; might as well put them to use. Foreman cut in.

"She has a point though; the blurred vision could be an illusion of grandeur and the seizure could be caused by the misfire of neurons from the schizophrenia," he shrugged. Foreman checked his watch, wondering if he had any new patients. Like Wilson, most of his appointments cancelled. House looked up to the ceiling and rubbed his eyes.

"Remind me why I hired you again. Chemical imbalance causes schizophrenia, not neurons. Come on, people! Think of something relatively sane. I could probably go ask the kid myself and get a better answer."

With that, the two present members of his team stood. "Fine," Foreman shrugged. "You can figure it out, then. Call us if you need us to do anything useful." House simply stood in his place as they closed the door behind them.

* * *

House tried to avoid Jeremy's excessively happy grin as he slid the door closed to the patient's room. Maya sat in the chair next to his bed, her uninterested look from earlier splayed across her face again. She held pieces of paper scribbled with bright colors and various markings, none of which House could make out as a tangible object. Jeremy held up his current masterpiece.

"It's the Isle of Gibraltar. My company stationed me there after I assassinated the president of Djibouti," Jeremy beamed, then chuckled at his use of the word "Djibouti." House used his cane to pull the swivel chair along with him, positioning himself in front of Jeremy's bed.

"Jeremy, can you tell me what three times four is?" House asked, skeptical that he would receive some convoluted answer. Instead, Jeremy turned the tables on him.

"Two times six. And four times three. And eight times one and a half. Oh, and one times twelve. I had to know that because of the fish on the wall at school." House looked towards his sister with confusion.

"When we were in the fifth grade, we had multiplication fish on a board at school. He has a good memory," she stated, almost completely deadpan. The lack of expression in her voice piqued House's interest.

"Were you held back or something?"

"No. We are fraternal twins, but the doctors gave him too much oxygen when we were born so he didn't grow right. We're seniors now," she said. A small smile, hardly noticeable, escaped her lips. Jeremy waved another sheet of paper in front of House's face. "He's been drawing you all morning," Maya offered.

House looked at the drawing. Two giant blue diamonds covered most of the page, with patches of gray and brown scribbled around them. In the left-hand corner, Jeremy drew a tiny stick-figure house, complete with a chimney and billowing smoke that filtered into the gray patches. Jeremy quickly snatched it back and folded it into a tight square, signing his name on the top. He then leaned over and stuffed the picture into House's coat pocket.

"Your brother is trying to butter me up; I have way less hair than that. He has normal mental function-"

"I could've told you that," Maya countered.

"But we can't understand him through the schizophrenia. Until this episode stops we will not be able to tell if he's separating an actual symptom from an illusion. How long do they normally last?"

"The last one lasted weeks. Do you know what caused the seizure?"

Jeremy interrupted with a comment about government implants, but House ignored him. Instead he turned towards the chart hanging at the end of Jeremy's bed.

"Your parents didn't think he should be seen?"

"They're out of town for a conference. I tried to call them but the phones are knocked out. All the planes are grounded as well." Maya gave Jeremy another sheet of paper to draw on. He started with a giant black circle in the center, and then went for another marker. "I can keep trying their cell phone, if that would help. Jeremy, you have to draw on the paper, not the table."

House looked at Jeremy's drawing. The black swirl tapered off into a pink outline, but Jeremy made the circles so big he missed the paper. He then scribbled on the desk, disregarding the paper entirely. Frustrated, he pushed the table away and covered his eyes with his hands.

Suddenly he began flailing his arms in front of him, reaching and calling for his sister. Panic flooded his face, and the tears that streamed from his eyes earlier that morning welled in his sockets again. House grabbed his hands and forced them into his lap, then motioned for Maya to hold them down. With his penlight, House shouted above Jeremy's screams to follow its path.

Instead, Jeremy stared off into space. "He needs an MRI. Now," House stated. "Your brother is blind."

* * *


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3-Hear No Evil

* * *

House looked into Jeremy's eye for the fifth time as the boy played with the head of his cane. Jeremy's sight returned less than an hour ago, and since then he roamed about the room looking for cracks in the wall to cover, just in case the "demons" who stole his sight came back again.

"Follow my finger," House ordered. As Jeremy's vision traced House's finger, Cameron stepped into the room, causing his attention to drift. He looked at her as if the Virgin Mother graced him with her presence. Suddenly, Jeremy began to rock from side to side.

Cameron grew concerned. "I'm not here to hurt you, Jeremy," she soothed. "Dr. House wanted me to take you downstairs to have an MRI done." He faltered in his rocking momentarily, turning to House and gesturing him in close.

"Will you go with me so the Beauteous Lady of Denmark doesn't poison me? My country needs me for the meeting with the Prince of Kashmir tomorrow," Jeremy whispered, eager that Cameron did not hear. House smiled inwardly and nodded.

On some strange plane, House managed to spark in interest in such an unusual patient. Jeremy floated between two separate worlds, the real world and one created by random miscalculations in his brain. House nearly envied the younger man, wishing that he could escape with such an excuse.

Jeremy slowly pulled himself off the bed, his face beet red. The gown he wore fell open somewhat, and he checked every so often to see if Cameron's gaze drifted towards his backside. Instead, she unlocked his IV tree and shuffled him towards the door. Just as she opened it, she noticed that Jeremy grew apprehensive.

Suddenly he stepped back, rocking from left to right. "I can't go out there! Those are not my people; they're spies, all of them! Please, they'll report me to the DMV, don't make me go!" Jeremy sniffled and covered his face.

The impatience House felt earlier that morning reared its disgustingly annoyed head. He knew why Jeremy became upset though; the enormous amount of people and doctors roaming the hall, people he knew absolutely nothing of, scared him enough to force a shift between the real world and his own. And since Maya left for the cafeteria a few minutes ago, House and Cameron were the only people he felt comfortable with. House knew what to do, as much as he abhorred the idea.

"Jeremy, if you hold my hand the entire way I'll guide you downstairs," House shouted over Jeremy's rants. He held his hand out, hoping that the boy would refuse to take it. Instead, Jeremy opened one eye, his good eye, and slowly grabbed House's finger. With Cameron following closely behind, the three stepped out into the hallway.

* * *

Wilson crossed his arms over his chest, leaning back in his chair. House sat next to him, his mood hardly lifted since the trio made its way to the MRI machine. Although Wilson sat in his office as the three trudged through the hallways, word spread horrendously fast that House actually allowed someone to touch him in any way, something Wilson could not die before seeing. He met up with them before they hit the elevator and took Cameron's place.

Jeremy instantly saw Wilson as a threat and instead of just wrapping a few fingers around House's own, he nearly tackled House and began to scream. As he opened his eyes and saw Wilson though, he quieted, but he kept a noticeable distance. Another obstacle arose as the small crew tried to wrestle him into the MRI machine. What began as a team of three eventually became a team of eleven.

With Jeremy safely secured in the machine, three large straps holding him in place, Wilson and House enjoyed some relatively quiet time in the observation room. Jeremy continued to mumble within the machine, but with the sound in the booth turned down so the two could carry on a normal conversation.

"You mean he actually drew pictures of you?" Wilson cried incredulously. "Please tell me you kept them."

"I only kept one, thank you," House retorted, pulling the picture out of his front pocket. House kept very few trinkets given to him by patients, and threw away almost anything that wasn't either food or useful in some way. Wilson laughed as he glanced over the picture, and as he handed it back to House he punched a few buttons on the keyboard in front of him. House wanted to get on with the examination. "His blood work didn't reveal any sort of toxin or cancer in his blood; I thought you might want to look at his brain."

"No you didn't; you got bored and lonely so you called me. You could do this on your own just as easily but admit it, you need human interaction."

House spun his cane around in circles on the floor. "You know it turns me on when Cuddy analyzes me. If that was the only reason you agreed to his gig just know I didn't bring protection." Wilson giggled to himself and tapped more keys on the keyboard.

"In that case I don't see any tumors; any lesions, contusions, or swelling." He pulled the film from the printer and shoved it into the backlight. "The only thing even worth mentioning is the discoloration near the occipital lobe but that could just be the film." House turned up the volume on the monitor to check on Jeremy. He still rambled about the amount of hummingbirds living in the ocean, so House cut the sound once more and asked Wilson if he saw Jeremy's chart.

"I looked at it; the fluctuations in protein levels could originate from nearly anywhere but I would start with the brain," Wilson mused. House shook his cane at Wilson as if to hit him.

"If I didn't start at the brain," House barked, "why on Earth would I have an MRI pointed directly at his screwball attic?"

Wilson grew annoyed and ducked out of the way. "I meant do other tests involving the brain, smartass."

As House's attention snapped back to the printout, Wilson turned up the volume on the monitor. Instead of constant chatter, Jeremy quieted into a whimper, tracks of tears dripping down the side of his face. The moment Wilson stepped into the actual MRI room, Jeremy wriggled under the straps once more and begged for someone to release him.

With three other nurses in the room, Wilson unclipped the straps on his arms, and seeing that the young man would not put up a struggle, started on the feet. Jeremy sat up to pull at the straps on his legs. House then walked in with a concerned look blotting his face.

"Jeremy, your sister said that your parents are out of town at the moment; can you tell me where they are without sounding special?" House waved away the other nurses as Jeremy wiped his nose on his arm.

"They went to a conference in Texas about having kids with disabilities. My mom said they would only be gone for a few days but that was a few months ago," Jeremy sighed. "Maya takes care of me now, at least until I become a French rap star."

Wilson moved before Jeremy finished his speech. He punched in the extension for security then quickly dialed for Cuddy as well. On the other hand, House hopped onto the MRI table and swung his own feet like Jeremy, who started mumbling as soon as a security team piled in, Cuddy fighting her way in between them.

House sent the security team in the direction of the cafeteria as Cuddy focused on the now-present legal issue surrounding Jeremy's healthcare. Jeremy hardly spoke aloud, instead whispering every answer into House's ear. Cuddy took notes as she posed questions.

"When do you turn eighteen, Jeremy?" she tried. Jeremy leaned into House's ear.

"The Ides of July," House interpreted. "I was born July fourteenth, 1991. Maya was born a horse, though."

House sat up quickly and swore to no one. "Call Child Services; he's an abandonment case." Cuddy stared at him in confusion. "The year of the horse was 1990. His sister told us they are fraternal twins, but she lied to us. They have the same birthday, but she was born the year before. Since she is old enough to care for him, she probably dropped him off here so she wouldn't have to."

The security team piled in once again, empty-handed, to prove House's theory. Cuddy crossed her arms and sighed as Jeremy started to rock again, mumbling into House's shoulder. Wilson, who stood in the observation booth as people filed in and out of the room, called over the intercom amidst all of the commotion that he heard Jeremy's stomach rumble. The doctors agreed to personally escort him downstairs for food to discuss his future.

* * *

Jeremy stabbed a fork into the cafeteria's version of meatloaf, chattering on about the positive effects of fish in the Tibetan economy. Doctors who recognized House peered at the small group above their lunches, and every time House caught them, he then made kissing faces in Wilson's direction. Wilson never noticed.

"Either way, we can't run anymore tests until the state picks him up-" Cuddy began.

"Wilson and I can adopt him until then. He'll be the love-child Wilson always begged me for in our relationship," House smirked. Wilson threw his head back and laughed. Jeremy stopped in his chatter and giggled as House continued. "Let's just_...not_ tell the state until we know what's wrong with him, and then somebody else can pay for the treatment."

"And who will front the bill for that?"

House shook off the question. Due to his age, by law the state had to pay for the treatment of minors without guardians, so money wasn't necessarily the issue. The main problem came from Jeremy's awareness; since no adult could speak for him Jeremy had to be his own advocate, and understand procedures before the doctors had permission to actually do them. Jeremy noticed House staring at him and smiled.

For a few moments after, Jeremy stared at Cuddy with his head bowed. She didn't notice at first, but when she did his face turned a deep scarlet again. "You look like my mom a little," he said after a while. No one spoke as Jeremy finished, and House gave up his favorite ice cream sandwich so Jeremy wouldn't scream the entire trip back to his room.

* * *

Three hours later, House returned with another team of nurses. After some debate, with much mediation from Wilson, House and Cuddy agreed that since he decided on a plan before the fiasco with security, House could run a single test. House settled on a lumbar puncture, but a time frame also existed. Cuddy also agreed not to call Child Services until House began the procedure.

Jeremy curled into a ball as more nurses crowded his room. House produced a large needle from the tray beside him and began detailing the procedure, similar to a police officer reading a suspect his Miranda Rights. The more he spoke though, the more Jeremy cowered. He nodded his head when House finished.

The nurses lined up along the bed, as well as an anesthesiologist. Cuddy stepped into the room just as the doctor placed the mask over Jeremy's face, and he instantly reached his hand towards her. She hesitated momentarily, until her maternal instincts overpowered her. Jeremy squeezed her hand, and House began the procedure.

House swabbed a large portion of Jeremy's back with disinfectant, and with rubber gloves donned, pressed him fingers into the spaces between his vertebrae. He chose the most swollen spot, and counting to three, stuck the needle into Jeremy's skin.

His entire body reacted, although the mask prevented him from screaming. House moved as quickly as possible, pulling the needle out somewhat ungracefully. A tiny river of blood leaked from the puncture spot, and with the needle out, the nurses retreated. Instead of tending to the small wound, House examined the vial: instead of normal, clear-colored spinal fluid, thick, yellow syrup filled it.

"Could be meningitis; that would explain the heightened protein levels," House mused. He placed the vial on the original tray and poked at Jeremy with his cane. Jeremy kicked at him and tightened his grip on Cuddy's hand. "You okay?"

Jeremy didn't answer. He shut his eyes instead and began mumbling to himself as if in a bizarre prayer to a god invented somewhere within his brain. House moved to poke him again, but Cuddy waved him off. She then knelt and pushed Jeremy's thick bangs from his forehead. He opened his eyes and smiled. "How do you feel?" she asked him.

Jeremy looked at her in complete confusion. "What?"

Cuddy repeated her phrase, only to receive the same response. She began to say it once more, but House stopped her by snapping his fingers behind Jeremy's ear. He then clapped two metal trays against each other, sending sharp vibrations through his arms. Almost as a last resort, he slammed one of the trays against the railing of the bed. Jeremy tried to turn around, but he stopped with a yelp, his back still sore. House rubbed his neck and gave Cuddy the verdict.

"You won't get anything out of him right now. He can't hear you."

* * *

Wow, I actually wrote over the 2,000 word mark. Anyway, I'm actually kinda pleased with this one, but I'm gonna try and condense it to my loyal fans don't have to wait eons to read it. Stay tuned!


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4-Mother Figure

* * *

"You have to let the juice saturate the meat for at least three hours. Then pick up the cat at the doctor's office. When you do that, Jesus can safely land."

Jeremy quickly turned with his IV tree, his gown fluttering in all directions, exposing his pelvis to the entire waiting room. Although the head nurse restricted Jeremy's supervised walk to the cafeteria and back, the same nurse also headed in a different direction after a doctor called her attention elsewhere. Left to his own volition, Jeremy began a routine in the waiting room that became overcrowded a few hours ago.

"You can also use the cat as a laptop, because the Chosen People do _not_ live in India. No, I will not touch you with drum stick!" A few patients tried to ignore Jeremy's rants, some found them amusing. At one point a patient asked if the hospital hired him as entertainment to curb the frustration of waiting. Every so often he shouted a random obscenity that brought disapproving looks, but overall his speech remained relatively confined.

"One day even _you _can have beautiful phalanges! When the half-pound burrito starts to flame, I will start a band, and the name will begin with a B," he said to a younger pregnant woman sitting next to a bulky man. The man held his hand in front of Jeremy and told him to back off, but Jeremy pressed inward. "I was just trying to find the nearest Chinese restaurant, Kemasabe!"

The bulky man sprang to his full height, towering over Jeremy. The man leaned into the younger man's face and shouted down to him. "Go look somewhere else, little man, or I'll make you."

Suddenly Jeremy jumped back, nearly slamming into a man in a wheelchair. A number of other patients stood as Jeremy clawed at the IV in his arm, and then tried to chew through the tubes. When the tube refused to break, he bit at the needle itself similar to a starved vampire. As blood started to drip from his mouth, patients shouted for a doctor.

Nurses funneled in, but the moment they saw Jeremy hunched over his arm, they ran separate ways again. One nurse could only stare as Jeremy pulled at the slightly frayed tube, but the device that separated the needle from the tube snapped, leaving the needle and part of the tip still lodged in his arm. He grabbed his head then and started to scream once more.

"Mama, make the maggots go away! Mama, please! Mom!" Jeremy dropped to the floor, his face red from the exertion. He continued the call for his mother until a few daring nurses tried to restrain him. Instead of crying, his face suddenly looked feral. "Get off me! I just want to go home!" He tried to dart, but the massive hands of a security guard pinned him in place. The pair struggled until Cuddy dashed into the room, halting the two. Wasting no time, Jeremy scrambled from the guard and latched onto Cuddy's waist.

"Mama, take me home, please," he cried into her stomach. She moved to speak, but a patient cut her off. "Next time keep your son on a leash, lady. That boy is a lunatic." Other patients nodded, and a senior woman shouted for Cuddy to put the young man in an institution. Cuddy tried to deny their accusations, but someone behind her spoke first.

"He gets it from _her_; this one is just as hilarious as he is," House called over her shoulder. Cuddy turned to face him with daggers in her eyes. As the nurses started to assemble the waiting room again, House held a sheet of paper in front of her nose. "See this? The spinal tap was for nothing thanks to his little outburst. If he had meningitis he wouldn't have the energy to preach and ultimately turn into a werewolf as he did. Also, it looks like your _son _had a little accident on your blouse, there."

Cuddy pried Jeremy from her waist somewhat to see what exactly House referred to. Blood gushing from his arm pooled at the bottom of her blouse and into her skirt. As soon as she saw the stain she tried to fully remove herself from Jeremy's grip but he remained firm. The entire waiting room continued to gawk.

"Jeremy, we need to get the needle out of your arm. You need to let go of me," she tried, but he squeezed tighter. She turned to House. "Can you at least help me before he loses too much blood?" House nudged Jeremy and held his hand out again, annoyed that Jeremy took it once more.

"Wilson couldn't decide if he would be "daddy" or "papa" in our life-partnership so he wants to return him to the little Russian adoption agency we found him in."

The thought took Cuddy by surprise and she remained silent. Instead, she held Jeremy to her hip as House held his hand all the way back to his room, her grip just as tight as the young man's on her waist. The three looked somewhat picturesque; a mother, father, and a boy who easily looked as if he could belong to either. And Cuddy vowed to protect him as such.

* * *

In his room, Jeremy winced as a nurse tied the last of the stitching in his arm. He buried his face into Cuddy's shoulder as the nurse applied a dab of antiseptic and wrapped the bandage around his elbow. Cuddy squeezed his right hand against his chest with one hand and held him in place with the other. House stood in the corner with his arms interlocked, all too aware of the bond Cuddy suddenly formed with a psychotic little boy.

With the nurse gone, House turned his attention back to the case itself. "We need more tests; I have no idea what to treat him for or where the disease is going. If the state becomes involved he may not have time to wait, especially if his brain is involved." Cuddy merely waved him away, much to House's irritation. "You're over-stepping your limits, you know. He's not your doll to play with." She responded with an incredulous look and quickly told him to leave if he stood there only to criticize. House departed with more comments that she paid no attention to.

Jeremy started to mumbled to himself after House left, nervous without the one person who understood him somewhat. Cuddy shifted her weight to support him with her knee, freeing her left hand to push Jeremy's bangs out of his eyes. The padded rocking chair she located (which belonged to the nursery) enabled her to hold him for the past half hour without discomfort, but she understood the implications of her actions. Although ethics allowed some comfort for patients, normally just simple gestures such as shoulder-patting, law also bounded her from much more. If House reported the way she held him, the state would revoke her license.

She liked that he depended on her, that he saw her as something more than a doctor. Cuddy wanted someone she could care for, who needed her for almost everything but loved her unconditionally in return. Experience told her that no man would give her that, but her familial relations proved that children formed attachments almost without thought. Although Jeremy's illusions of grandeur skewered his perception of her, Cuddy already invested a dangerous amount of emotion into him. She wanted someone to love _without_ the danger, someone to call her own, to be proud of, to scold, to help with homework, to tuck in at night. She wanted to watch a baby, her baby, grow into adulthood so one day she could tell people about her son the engineer or her daughter the lawyer.

Jeremy snapped his fingers beside his ear, pleased that the entirety of his hearing returned. He feared that his response to the bulky man from the fiasco in the waiting room was just a fluke, and he told the New Mom about the Persian assassins who tried to destroy his brain through his ears. She only nodded or gave a muted response, but that was okay. At least she listened. Old Mom never listened to what he had to say, she only worried about his medicine or his next therapy appointment. A drop of water splashed against his head, then another, and he looked up to see if the ceiling started to rain, but New Mom put her face against his head, locking it into place.

When Wilson stepped into the room, Cuddy looked up and quickly dabbed at her eyes, loosening her grip somewhat. She tried to appear professional, but when she realized that Wilson would not protest, she relaxed again. Jeremy smiled at Wilson, nothing but content filling his face. Despite everything that happened to him within the course of the day, he felt safe. He wanted to wave at the understanding doctor, but New Mom started talking before he could.

"Wilson," she stammered. "I want to adopt."


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five-Degeneration

* * *

House bounced his over-sized gray and red tennis ball against the wall next to his white board. Within the past six hours, he only managed to write down a handful of symptoms, and although he could easily explain _how _each symptom related to the other, he still had no idea as to the _why_. Restless, Jeremy paced behind House, occasionally asking where Cuddy and Wilson rambled off to or plucking at a book House immediately told him to put back. With a new gown and a pair of scrub bottoms Cameron located, Cuddy allowed Jeremy to follow House throughout the hospital.

The symptoms as of yet remained fixated at a single seizure, blurred vision, hearing loss, an emotional outburst, and murky spinal fluid. Something felt off to House though; every symptom originated in the brain, yet the MRI revealed nothing unusual, save for some discoloration in the occipital lobe where none of the senses connect. The symptoms were those of hundreds of diseases, but something microscopic was missing. House spun his chair around and chucked the ball at Jeremy. "Want to go find Papa Wilson?" Jeremy hopped over to the tennis ball and nodded with enthusiasm.

Similar to a small Chihuahua pulling at the ear of a much larger dog, Jeremy helped House to his feet and handed him his cane. House would never admit to another person, save for Wilson, that he was not only interested in such an unusual patient, but somehow he felt a strong attachment to him. Not as deep as Cuddy's, who allowed her feelings for the boy to go too far in House's opinion, but enough so that he considered Jeremy as something other than just another patient. Certainly not at a "friend" level, but more than a nameless person he saw roaming throughout the hallways of the hospital.

As they stood in front of the sliding door, House held out his hand in the usual fashion. This time, however, Jeremy shook his head, and with a deep breath, slid the door open himself. He took a few hesitant steps into the hallway and stopped, waiting for nurses to scramble for doctors or other patients to run in fear. When nothing about the hallway changed, he turned back to House and grinned. House hobbled behind Jeremy, barking out directions as they trudged through the hall towards Wilson's office. Something looked off about the young man's step all of a sudden.

This morning as Jeremy paced along the walls of his room, although hunched over somewhat, his feet never faltered. Now however, every so often his left foot hitched a little, or his right knee bent just a hair farther than normal. His arms swung with wider arches, possibly trying to unconsciously overcorrect some sort of imbalance. House couldn't tell if Jeremy knew of his unusual gait or not. From the way he bobbed his head and stopped every so often to play some insane silent solo on his "air drums," it looked as if Jeremy had no clue.

The longer it took to find Wilson's office, the louder Jeremy's air band grew. They stopped by the pharmacy on the way, and as the pharmacist handed House a prescription, Jeremy dropped to his knees and emitted an ear-shattering squeal that halted most of the doctors. With one hand splayed outwards and the other making wide circles, he looked like an eighties rock star without the long hair. House didn't stop Jeremy as he continued rocking to some song only he could hear, and after a few circular laps on his back in the same rock star position, the pair continued down the hall.

* * *

Cuddy looked up from her conversation on the phone as House and Jeremy stumbled into her office. Although House very seldom laughed openly, Jeremy could barely stand upright as House kept his ground with a bemused grin. Cuddy merely raised her eyebrow at him.

"What? All I said was 'freak nasty' and he exploded. It's his stage name," House shrugged as Jeremy's combustible laughter nearly toppled him. He then turned his attention to Wilson. "By the way, we settled on 'papa' for you. You would've been 'dad' but he looks more like me." Cuddy pretended to search through files, unwilling to meet Wilson's gaze. She asked how Jeremy felt instead.

"The yellow cars in the outhouse went to the movies," he stated, as if the fact was blatantly obvious. He played with the drawstring on his scrubs. "And Iran defected from Spain." Cuddy nodded as if she had some idea as to what he was referring. House dropped himself into the couch and ordered Jeremy to not make a mess with "down, boy." Instead Jeremy plopped into the seat next to him.

"So what ideas do we have about our resident hilarity?" he began. Cuddy handed him another printout and nearly read it from memory. "The murkiness in the syringe wasn't spinal fluid, it was myelin," she stated.

House read over the page, Jeremy peering over his shoulder. He studied it for a moment before handing it to Wilson, who furrowed his eyebrows at the reading and turned to the young man. "What's your full name?"

"Jeremy Fortino Trovato." House cut in before Wilson could finish.

"How's that relevant to anything?"

Wilson acknowledged his friend but kept with his line of questioning. "Do you eat a lot of Italian food?" Jeremy nodded.

"My mom is from Palermo; she cooks more than my dad. My favorite food is a salad thing she makes that has a lot of garlic and feta on it. She says it's more Greek but the oil she uses comes from Palermo."

House whacked at Wilson's ankle with his cane. Before he could get a word out, Wilson spouted an answer. "Adrenoleukodystrophy. I'm going to snap that in half if you keep swinging it at me."

"Yes, dear," House retorted. "That wouldn't work; ALD appears in boys when they're still toddlers. Happy Gilmore here is too old."

"Yeah, but if his mother's been giving him half of Lorenzo's Oil since around then the disease could possibly lie dormant for years. Then after they left and the sister fed him whatever she could find, combined with hospital food, the symptoms appear."

Although his reasoning worked, House remained unconvinced. At least with a basis to work with, the lack of myelin, he could track and ultimately project Jeremy's progress. House worried about whether or not his system could handle such a waiting period, though. He felt as if he were short on time, that Jeremy would fall apart. The treatment for ALD required both parts of the Oil, erucic and oleic acid. Only oleic acid appeared in the olive oil his mother used, and even then it was the lesser ingredient; the entire substance needed four times more erucic acid than oleic. Salad alone would not stop such a disease.

"The blindness and the deafness would be permanent though," House returned after some thought. All at once his thinking suddenly turned ugly, and he had a terrifying proposition. The only disease that matched his symptoms was fatal. Patients subjected to the disease died before they finished their teenage years. "Order him a round of plasmapheresis for Diffuse Cerebral Sclerosis of Schilder."

Cuddy instantly denied his request. "That can't be it."

"And why not?"

She stammered. "Because…" Cuddy feared that her choice of words would scare Jeremy. "His parents would've lost him years ago." Jeremy piped in, indicating that he missed her meaning, and he strolled over to Cuddy with his arms outstretched.

"No, they lost me only a few months ago. My dad said they would come back though so don't worry." Jeremy wrapped his lanky arms around Cuddy, hugging her tightly so she could hear his stomach rumble. She pulled an apple out of the top drawer of her desk and handed it to him, asking him to find a seat outside for just a few minutes. He shrugged and headed for the door. House ignored him.

"You're letting your feelings get in the way, Cuddy." House began. Wilson rolled his chair into a corner, hoping they wouldn't notice his absence. Cuddy crossed her arms, ever the defiant child. Her heels tapped across the floor as she stood under House's gaze, a foot away from his face. Although he towered over her, she stood her ground.

"He's just a little boy who needs someone to care for him," she commanded, her voice low but tense. House nearly threw his cane against a wall.

"He's just another patient! He's sick, we treat him, he goes home. That's it," shouted House, oblivious to the tapping noise growing louder. Wilson noticed first, and before the other two could continue Wilson had his arms locked around Jeremy.

Jeremy never made it into the hall. He stopped at the door as their voices grew louder, and thought of nothing except their shouts. They sounded familiar; it was as if Old Mom and Old Dad were there with him. He remained so transfixed throughout their argument that he forgot to swallow the apple he bit into moments ago.

Cuddy ran for another crash cart as Wilson continued the Heimlich. Jeremy's face continued its descent into darker shades of blue and purple, until House ordered him on the floor. House poked around his throat with his fingers until he noticed something unusual; Jeremy wasn't choking, his throat wasn't allowing him to swallow. And although the throat automatically digested food in waves, Jeremy's pulsed in increasing increments. The stronger the pulse, the tighter his throat grew.

Cuddy returned with a tray of intubation tools. She disinfected his throat, and with careful precision made a small but relatively deep cut into his trachea. Wilson inserted the cap as Cuddy prepared the tube itself, Jeremy's breathing already improving. With the tube in place and an unnecessary bag helping him breathe, Jeremy lay on the floor waiting for a team of nurses to wheel him back to his room, his hand locked around Cuddy's. House located a pair of surgical tongs and with some pinching and pulling extracted the apple.

Although the lack of oxygen left Jeremy dizzy and wheezing, he noticed his tight grip on Cuddy's hand long before she managed to. He noticed when New Dad saw their connection, noticed his fear and jealousy, and Jeremy felt remorseful. He knew why they argued before, and once again, it was over him.

Four nurses helped him onto a gurney, as well as New Mom and Wilson. New Dad stood behind everyone, trying his hardest to blend into the furniture. Jeremy kept his gaze on him until someone asked if he was ready to leave, whereupon he motioned for New Dad. Before the nurses started to push, he transferred New Mom's hand into New Dad's. No one should fight because of him; he suddenly didn't feel worth it.

* * *

House underlined the new symptom on the whiteboard a half hour later after his team assembled in his office. Chase now joined them after an intense battle with his car buried deep within the snow, and although he was yet to meet the young man, Chase already had doubts about him.

"Did you ever think that he could be making it all up, that it's some sort of delusion from the schizophrenia?" Chase's mood already annoyed House, and he regretted making the phone call to bring him in. House rubbed his temple.

"And next time you say something wrong I'm going to blame it on the Australian accent. Thanks for playing," House remarked. Chase sat back in his chair, defeated and humiliated, another day at work. The other members of the team had a six-hour start on the case; such abuse didn't seem fair. Then again, it never did. House kept picking at answers. "What else do you got?"

"Maybe the symptoms aren't as connected as we think. He could just have epilepsy; hearing loss and blindness often appear right before a patient has a seizure-" Foreman began, until House stomped his cane on the floor.

"Interesting that a _neurologist_ would forget about the myelin loss. Come on, people, this shouldn't be as hard as it is." House pieced together an analogy to explain his trail of thought. "Myelin acts as a type of insulation, like the rubber on copper tubing. Without the insulation, and with the right amount of wear, the wiring short-circuits."

Cameron chimed in. "Multiple sclerosis. It's a bit late and obvious but it explains the periods of relapse and almost every symptom." House didn't meet her gaze. Instead he nodded, reaching for the oversized tennis ball.

"Put him on beta-interferons then, and check his progress every hour. Until something new happens I have a certain _ring_ I need fixed."

* * *

The fake, science-fiction gunshots echoed throughout the hallway as House and Jeremy pounded away on the game controllers. With nothing else to do but wait, and assuming that every teenage boy knew how to fix a game console, House lugged the entire system into Jeremy's room to play. Without much prodding, Jeremy easily solved the problem and wrote on his small dry-erase board that it was simply too hot against the wall.

With much of his communication cut off, Jeremy retreated into a tame but blank version of himself, his colorful attitude diminishing with the sun. He refused to meet most people's gaze, and his random comments about the government and religious figures grew less over time. Because of the winter months, the sunset came earlier than expected, and it looked as if Jeremy had a normal case of the seasonal blues.

That wasn't it though, and House knew it. Despite living in two completely different worlds, Jeremy could easily keep up with the real one and feel its effects. He wanted to ask the young man, but it seemed somewhat pointless. Unlike Cuddy, House didn't want to get involved with this patient, as amusing as he may be.

Their game continued well after the sun set, but they switched from science-fiction to some recent war game Jeremy grew excited about. He wrote on the board that his mother didn't allow him to play such a game, and House could easily see why. Every so often, in between firefights, Jeremy flipped his long hair behind his head. At first, House didn't notice the small yelp he made every time Jeremy ran his hand through his hair. When Jeremy dropped the controller though, House paused the game to look.

Parting the thick, unruly hair, House found a deep cut on the back of his head. The cut wasn't new, but flakes of dry blood fell like dandruff onto Jeremy's neck as House investigated. "When did you get this, Jeremy?"

Jeremy scribbled on his board. _A few days ago. I fell in the backyard and hit my head on the sandbox._

"Did your sister even know about it?"

The young man erased the board and wrote a new message. _The cat-top instructed me not to tell her or it would put the maggots in my brain. I told her anyway._ Jeremy sniffled and went to scratch his head, but House batted his hand away.

House wasn't sure if the redness and irritation came from Jeremy's scratching or the infection brewing beneath the skin. "Did she clean it at all?"

Jeremy stopped in his doodle of the "cat-top" in question to answer House. _She rinsed it with some soap and water but that hurt really badly so I made her stop._ House buzzed for a member of his team before Jeremy even finished writing. Much to House's irritation, Chase entered, albeit sluggishly. Jeremy's face registered panic at seeing a new person once again, and he pulled at House's jacket for comfort.

"Take him down to get an x-ray and call everyone downstairs. Call Cuddy as well; she needs to see what sort of trouble her _son _has been into."

* * *

A half hour later, House flipped on the light to the viewing board, shoving the x-ray of Jeremy's cranium into the sockets on top. The first two x-rays showed absolutely nothing from a frontal view, but from the back, the imperfection stood out like a puzzle piece in the wrong puzzle. His occipital bone showed a small crevice at the base, the same location in which Wilson pointed out the discoloration earlier that morning.

And according to Jeremy, right where the maggots are supposed to be.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6-Reprieve

* * *

Jeremy sighed again, irritated once more that another nurse refused to answer his page. He did not mean to awaken at such an early hour, but after his senses came to, he realized that his mouth felt extremely dry. Earlier that evening, since no one could stay by his side the entire night, New Mom bound him with straps similar to the type Papa Wilson used to hold him in place during the MRI. Because New Mom did it, and not some random nurse, Jeremy didn't protest as much, but now he couldn't reach his water pitcher.

He struggled for a moment, shifting his body, but regretted that decision; the breathing tube placed the day before shifted the opposite way, sending jolts of hot pain throughout his throat. The itch caused by the now-properly stitched gash on the top of his head spread like tarantulas, creeping its way across his skull, upsetting the maggots lodged deep within his brain. They quivered every so often, their unfocused energy inching along his brain like a cancer.

At first, the maggots were simply larvae, babies without ideas or purpose. For the past week, Jeremy enjoyed their presence; they guided him and helped him make wise decisions. Then, after he met New Mom and New Dad, the maggots grew angry. He could feel their spite turn to vengeance the night New Mom held him; afterwards, they attacked him occasionally. He argued with them inside his head, but he always fought a losing battle.

Slamming his head back against the flat pillow, Jeremy felt tears river down his face. He didn't mean to cry, but he felt too frustrated for anything else. The nurses ignored him, and he knew why. They feared him, detested him, loathed his very presence. At one point, when he still lived with Old Mom, he felt the same way. Even with Maya, he often felt a distance between them, as if she looked into his world with some sort of pity. They hardly ever fought before, but after the Old Parents left, she slowly morphed into an Old, and their fighting increased, usually over his medication.

Old Mom used to cry over him, and that made Jeremy sad sometimes. In the beginning, when he first met all the people no one else could see, he could hear Old Mom creep into his room at night. He pretended to sleep; the blue cat that often sat atop his dresser told him to. Because of this, he listened to her lament his very existence. _Mi povero bambino,_ she would say. _Che io desiderotu non fosti nato, como tu soffri*_…

Jeremy never considered it "suffering" though. Sure, at times he found the voices annoying, especially when they chattered amongst themselves. But he learned to cope, to listen to their advice, their stories, their perception of things. It made more sense to listen to something in his head, something that he carried wherever he went, rather than everyone else. Everybody made his decisions for him outside his head, but inside he roamed entire worlds without a single rejection.

Suddenly though, the beings inside grew frantic with the turmoil outside. New Mom and New Dad sparked feelings within him that in his chest felt were fine, he liked that they cared for him, but in his head something felt off. His brain told him they grew too close, that they knew too much. His chest, however, felt that he deserved the attention in some way. After so long without it, at least any positive attention, Jeremy wanted affection.

New Mom told him before she left that she would return early in the morning, and after some time Jeremy understood why. Papa Wilson sat with him for some time that afternoon; they chatted for an hour or so but hardly got anywhere. Occasionally Jeremy asked about New Dad, but his brain told him to call the man by his actual name. They talked about the relationship of the New Parents, why New Mom came to the hospital so much earlier than New Dad, and especially why they always fought.

Jeremy thought back to the look on New Dad's face a few hours before, as they wheeled him away. He still couldn't pry the image from his mind. Maybe that answered why those inside his head feared this new relationship, because they knew better than his chest did the pain it caused someone else. That certainly helped him feel somewhat better; if New Mom's maternal instincts towards him hurt someone else, than his chest couldn't argue with that. For most of his life, Jeremy's acquaintances worried over him for the wrong reasons, and he didn't feel like adding one more person to that pool.

His body overall felt better though, Jeremy understood that much. Although his mouth continued to dry, the aches and pains that build up inside his bones over the past few days ebbed somewhat. He noticed that when the maggots slithered inside how the rest of his body reacted to them. Jeremy wanted to reject them, at first they felt odd living inside with all the other inhabitants, but they convinced him to stay. After his body started to force them back out, and all the problems began, his chest grew fearful of the maggots, then slowly, so did the rest of him. Now, he wanted them gone.

* * *

A few hours after the alarm clock next to his bed rang, purposefully set for an ungodly hour in the morning, Jeremy sat up in bed, arms free. He wanted to look better for New Mom this morning, so he pestered a nurse for some cleaning supplies. The ordeal took far longer than he expected (they had to use saran wrap to cover the bandages on his arm and he could barely scrub himself properly for fear of water leaking into his trachea cap), and New Mom actually stopped for a visit before he finished. He felt that he needed to see her, and since he knew exactly which part of the hospital contained her office, he decided to find it himself.

With his IV tree sporting two bags instead of one, he stood outside her office, just watching her work. She looked much like Old Mom, with similar facial features but without the olive tone. He stood there for a few minutes unnoticed, until she spotted him through the glass. He covered the trachea cap with his finger and worked to speak as she opened the door for him but the most he could manage sounded like a few squeaks and whistles.

She ushered him into a chair and returned to her own behind the desk. "How do you feel today?" Jeremy gave her a thumb up, and then motioned for a piece of paper.

_I'm sorry I missed you earlier,_ he wrote, but she waved it off. They continued this back and forth exchange for a few minutes, until her attention drifted back to the paperwork on her desk and Jeremy grew tired. No one spoke or wrote anything for around a half an hour, until the door to her office swung open. House stood in the doorway, leaning on his cane.

"It's not MS," he stated, peering at Jeremy with some sort of apprehension. "And I need to open his skull. We won't know what Dopey has until I see what's inside for myself." Cuddy shook her head, not looking up from her paperwork, refusing to meet House's disbelieving stare. Jeremy pulled his crossed legs to his chest and tried to think himself out of the room, away from their impending argument.

"There has to be other tests; an fMRI, more blood tests, anything," she called back, her voice flat.

"Can you think of any? I sure as hell can't," House shouted. "If I don't know what he has, the rest of his body will shut down and he'll die. Is that what you want?" Jeremy's head popped up from between his knees, looking terrified.

"Of course not! But you're asking to do a delicate procedure without any idea what he has; it would never make it past a board of reviewers."

"He doesn't have time to wait for a board and you know it, Cuddy," House roared, slamming the shoe of his cane onto the hardwood floor. Although Cuddy's unnecessarily stern adherence to hospital policies often annoyed House at best, this morning he grew absolutely furious. Jeremy was _not_ "special" to House in any way, and however against his character it seemed, ethics told him that Jeremy did nothing to deserve such maltreatment.

Jeremy clamped his hands to his ears, desperate to block out the shouts. They sounded too much like Old Mom and Old Dad, how they spent their nights screaming at each other in Italian because of him. They never knew he could understand most of what they said, that it was a second language to him. Nobody bothered to ask.

After some time, his original parents' shouting turned into something else, something ugly, something he refused to remember. One day they simply _stopped_, and then Old Mom looked at him as if she would never see him again. Jeremy never thought much of it though; microorganisms buried deep within his brain reassured him that they would return in some form or another. Either way, Jeremy always hoped that they were happy, whatever their location.

At the very moment, though, he wanted New Mom and Dad to just stop yelling. They seemed so right for each other, and they had no reason to fight. New Dad always seemed to get on New Mom's nerves in some way, but Jeremy figured that some other reason ignited their squabbles. Jeremy knew some of that information he could never be privy to, but he preferred that they keep it to themselves. He already knew they fought over him.

Their shouts continued for some time, until Jeremy willed himself into another plane of existence. He concentrated on the government buildings his spirit hovered over, and listened to the hum of the inhabitants, milling around like bees. To further drown out the noise, he tried to emulate the hum. He barely noticed New Mom whispering into his ear that he needed to return to his room. New Dad hobbled behind him the entire way, although this time they trudged in silence.

* * *

An hour later, Jeremy leaned over the bed, vomiting the acidic taste out of his mouth. The maggots sent wave after wave of pure nausea up through his stomach and into his throat, burning away at the trachea tube. Yellow, bilious liquid leaked from both the tube and his mouth equally, staining his sheets. He felt an impending sense of doom creeping along the front of his brain.

Then it hit him the way a freight train plows into a small car stuck on railroad tracks. Jeremy could hear it coming, the siren, and could feel the intense electricity spread throughout the nerves in his system. As bolts of hot energy raced throughout his veins, blackness creeped into his peripheral vision and started to overtake him. He remembered the same feeling from the morning before, right after New Dad made him laugh. The feeling didn't scare him though, because he knew that once the Darkness took him, Jeremy wouldn't hear New Mom and Dad's shouts, and he would feel no pain. In a few seconds, nothing would exist, and he could make no more mistakes to disappoint the New Parents. Luckily, the feeling came quickly and Jeremy was unconscious before his body started to seize once more.

House didn't know until a member of his team paged him fifteen minutes after another doctor forced Jeremy into a drug-induced coma.

* * *

*Italian translation: "My poor baby boy, I wish you were never born. How you've suffered…"


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7-Failure

* * *

House rested his chin on his hands, his hands on his cane. He felt tired suddenly, as if part of the energy used to keep his body up and moving vanished. Above all, he wanted to go home and sleep. Instead, he placed himself in the clinic's waiting room in the same chair he sat in a little over 24 hours ago.

As if stuck in an annoying movie, one in which a single day repeated itself, he sat next to another young man around Jeremy's age. Instead of his sister, however, the boy sat next to his mother or aunt of some kind, cradling his badly scraped elbow. House turned to the young man next to him.

"Do you own New Jersey?" House asked, blithely. The young man eyed him suspiciously and inched closer to his relative. House spoke louder, leaning into the young man's face. "Do you, or do you not, speak Finnish?" The boy's mother turned her attention to her son and House, eyeballing him with an incredulous look.

As House looked at her and smiled, she grabbed her son's unscathed arm and pulled him to the other side of the room. After the boy seated himself, the woman spoke indiscreetly to a nurse, pointed in House's direction, and sat next to her son again. House didn't see this, of course; instead he watched the way the boy cradled his arm and a number of other movements. Only when Cameron appeared in front of House's vision did he break his focus.

"I wonder if that kid's mom knows he throws up after dinner every night," House mused, trying not to look at Cameron's stomach. She sat next to House in the now-vacant seat, crossing her legs and placing her hands on the knee of her pink scrubs. After a quick scan of the waiting room, she focused on the young man as well.

"What does the cut on his arm have to do with throwing up?"

"The cut is days old and fairly shallow. If he digested the proper amount of nutrients every night it would heal. Also his hair and teeth practically give him away," said House, disinterested once more. Cameron grinned at the floor, making a mental note to mark that as one of her questions on his chart. She looked at House's hands then, idly twirling his cane on the floor.

"You know," she began, "sitting down here and annoying patients will not help you figure out what's wrong with him."

House's gaze turned towards the floor. "It wasn't Jeremy I was really thinking about, but I'll try to remember that when his organs start to fail." He thought of the tune Jeremy "air-banned" to the day before and tapped his cane to the rhythm of it. "I need to get inside his brain; I'm willing to go through Cuddy to do so."

Cameron said nothing for a moment. Instead, she took the opportunity to stretch her shoulders, emptying the day's stresses into vacant space. As much as she enjoyed listening to Jeremy speak openly about his ways of infiltrating the White House (particularly to the ex-Marine down the hall from him), now, Cameron held little patience for him. House and Cuddy argued over patients on a near-daily basis, but they seldom drove an enormous rift between the two. Jeremy represented the physical embodiment of that rift, and Cameron did not enjoy the idea.

The bustling waiting room hardly noticed House and Cameron; instead, patients with various ailments wandered throughout the room, some aimlessly, some with purpose. House could easily diagnose most of them from the chair he currently sat in, but he did not want to deprive the people of an exercise in patience. Most of their problems were annoyingly minor at any rate.

They continued sitting for some time until the waiting room thinned out, leaving House, Cuddy, and a young family sitting at the front of the room. They looked young, children themselves practically, but the mother held a toddler in her arms. The little girl had nothing more than a simple cold, which irritated House despite the lack of other patients. A nurse called out a name, prompting the young parents to glance in the direction of the nurse and rise slowly.

"Their baby is wearing two different shoes," Cameron mused aloud.

House turned his gaze toward the little girl, eyed the mismatched footwear in question, and said nothing. Without word or notice, House nearly jumped from his seat and headed towards Jeremy's room.

* * *

Chase scrubbed his arms dutifully, careful not to miss an inch of skin. Unfortunately, surgeons' hands very seldom appeared as smooth and silky as those of the movies or television did, but Chase tried to keep his hands presentable. He knew too many surgeons with dry, cracked, and parched hands caused by the constant scrubbing and sterilization.

Satisfied, Chase turned towards an assistant, his hands held high, and ready for his apron and rubber gloves. The following surgery appeared simple enough; a removal of the malignant tumor lodged in Ms. Leukewitz' occipital lobe. At any rate, Chase completed far more difficult surgeries in his career.

In terms of patient history, this surgery would count as her third. At age 74, Ms. Leukewitz really had no business undergoing such an arduous and stressful feat. Any younger patient would most likely survive with few side effects (save for the possibility of the tumor's return). The simple fact that the older woman even survived two other procedures astounded Chase and his fellow colleagues.

Ms. Leukewitz hardly weighed more than a prepubescent girl, with the height and frame to match. Chase could just barely see her small feet at the end of the table as he drew the line across her skull. Foresight on the part of his surgical team saw that Ms. Leukewitz head looked similar to that of a peach bowling ball, hairless and void of any color. A tarp blocked Chase's view of the rest of her face.

With the incision made and her skin pulled back to expose the skull, Chase switched on the serrated saw. He bent low then, carefully inching the saw across the bone, the whine of the saw's motor blocking out every other sound in the room. Long ago Chase learned to block out the sickening squeal of a blade slicing through thick bone, similar to the way a dentist ignores the horrible grind against teeth. Chase went almost completely around her skull then back around in a semi-circular shape, leaving the front of her skull intact while dislodging the occipital bone.

Breathless, Chase pulled away the portion of bone. He nearly dropped the fragment as he backed away suddenly, forcing the rest of his team to jump back with him.

Slipping onto the floor were small, yellow, writhing insects.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8-Vacancy

* * *

House shoved open the surgery door with his cane and looked to the floor, speaking out of the side of his mouth to Chase. "So are you going to let them eat at his brain or are you going to try closing him up?"

Chase still did not move for a time, his eyes bouncing back and forth between House, the floor, and the skull he opened as if watching a bizarre, three-person tennis match. So many thoughts bubbled around his mind that he did not know where to begin with them all. His stomach started to churn at the site of dozens of yellow maggots twisting and turning their slimy bodies in a heap on the floor. In his years of practice, nothing like this even remotely disgusted him as much. Second to that feeling was the fact that House duped him. Again.

Since the younger man merely stood his ground, House picked up the rongeur* and delicately scraped at the exposed brain. His switch worked perfectly and he could not ask for a better set of circumstances: since the old bat who was supposed to receive surgery at this allotted time died only a few minutes before attending were supposed to wheel her away, House took the opportunity to switch her bed with Jeremy's. Orderlies seldom look at a patient's chart, anyway. Jeremy and the old lady had similar stats, weight, and height, so with a shaved head one could hardly tell the difference. House smiled inwardly as he scraped at Jeremy's brain, whistling some tune he heard on the radio this morning.

The maggots clinked against the tray House dropped them in, goo keeping them bound in a greasy ball. Since the brain held surprisingly little blood, the maggots' yellow bodies shined in the bright light of the surgery room. As House worked, he tried to avoid the small pile that accumulated on the floor, hoping to spare his favorite sneakers from their crunchy bodies. The surgical team remained fixated in their places, staring at the exposed brain and the patches of tiny worms covering it.

Once House cleared as many of the bugs away as possible, he stood up to his full height and arched his back. He towered over Chase by a few inches so the surgical table was lower than he expected. As House stood, he removed his sterile gloves and placed them in Chase's hand. "Close him up; he'll need a few more surgeries to get any stragglers. And make sure there aren't any eggs in the folds before you put the plates back together."

As House opened the door, he finally heard one of the attendings vomit. Outwardly, he smiled.

* * *

A week later he sat in Jeremy's room again, checking the stitches that made his head look more like a baseball than a skull. They spent much of the week playing the video game system when House had the chance, or walking back and forth between the cafeteria and his room. Three days after his surgery, Cuddy finally allowed the social worker into the room. In two weeks, Jeremy would most likely spend the rest of his seventeenth year of life in foster care. That is, if anyone would willingly take him in.

Jeremy knew that his time with New Mom and Dad was extremely limited, so he tried to spend as much time with either of them as they would allow. New Dad typically did not let him hang around for more than a few minutes, claiming that he had work to do, but often Jeremy saw him sitting in his office throwing a giant tennis ball against the wall. New Mom let him sit in her office while she worked as long as no other patients came in to talk with her, then he had to wait with one of the nurses outside. His brain did not itch as bad as when the maggots lived in it, and he knew that a few still resided in his brain but New Dad told him that they would no longer hurt him and other doctors could get them out. Jeremy also noticed that they did not bother him at all when he was with New Mom, and that made him happy.

But right now, at that moment, New Dad poked around the top of his head. They seldom spoke to each other (except to talk about strategies to take down enemies in the war game), but Jeremy wanted to chat today. "Did the maggots eat at your leg too?"

New Dad stopped momentarily and looked at him, taking in a deep breath. "Not exactly."

"Maybe I can be a doctor," Jeremy speculated. "Then I can take them out of your leg since you took them away from my brain. That way the government can't track you anymore." He sat back against his pillow, content that he had a plan for his life. In school, even though he had to take some special ed classes, Jeremy actually did fairly well. His favorite class was definitely chemistry, only because the pictures of molecules in his book often made him giggle. But he was at the top of the class regardless.

House covered the large gash once again and picked up his cane. "Do whatever you want," he said. "Just don't come back here unless you are bleeding out of your ears." Although he hummed the funny little tune Jeremy played on his air-guitar, House never saw him again.

* * *

A week later, Cuddy watched from her office as Jeremy nearly skipped out of the hospital, holding the hand of his social worker. She smiled at the image of his bandaged white head bouncing up and down, and the social worker trying desperately to keep up with him. From her view in the office, he could not see her.

At some point she found Wilson standing next to her, although she could not remember how he got there. Long after Jeremy left, she remained at the window hoping that he would come back for some reason, trying to mentally send him thoughts in a last-ditch hope to see him again. Finally, Wilson wrapped his arm around her and pulled her into his shoulder.

"I pushed for adoption but it would take months to get any sort of approval," Cuddy said after a few minutes. "He would be too old by the time I got to him." Wilson took his time before answering.

"But now you know what it's like, even if only for a little while. Just think, that's a few weeks worth of love he probably hasn't had in a very long time."

They stood fixated in that position for a half hour, quiet tears occasionally slipping from her eyes. When she finally noticed that the hospital behind her quieted down, Cuddy kissed Wilson on the cheek and gathered her things for the journey home. Wilson could only smile.


End file.
